Neville Longbottom and the Sorcerer's Stone
by Almost Famous 12
Summary: What if Neville Longbottom was The Chosen One instead of Harry? What if Lord Voldemort had marked Neville as his equal instead of Harry?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"Happy birthday!" Lily Potter exclaimed as her son, Harry, walked into the kitchen on July 31st. She hugged him.

"Here, you got a letter," she continued, handing him an envelope and indicating the large, tawny owl perched on the sink, drinking out of a cup of water.

Harry accepted the letter grinning; he hardly ever got mail. On the front of the envelope was Harry's address, written in green ink. He turned the letter over and saw that it was sealed with scarlet wax. His grin broadened. He knew what this letter was, and obviously so did his parents, Lily and James, as they were both standing in the room, looks of anticipation on both their faces.

He actually considered setting the letter down on the table and going to eat breakfast just to see what his parents would do, but then he decided that he'd rather go ahead and read the letter himself.

Harry ripped the letter open and turned it upside-down. Out of the envelope fell two sheets of paper. He picked up the first one and read it aloud:

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Term starts on September the first. You will board the Hogwarts Express on Platform 9¾ at King's Cross train station in London at eleven o'clock. Your list off supplies is enclosed._

_Yours,_

_Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress_

Harry looked at his parents, waiting for it to come—

"Congratulations!" Lily exclaimed, stepping forward and embracing her son for the second time that morning.

"Good job, son!" said James, and he patted Harry on the back.

"We'll have to go to Diagon Alley soon," commented Lily. "How about I take him tomorrow, James?"

"That sounds good," James Potter replied.

It was a known fact in the wizarding world that on a child's eleventh birthday, a letter was sent, accepting them to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school of magic. All of Hogwarts' students are marked to attend at birth, though not all of them know it. For some, such as muggle-borns, their letter comes as a complete surprise, as the witch or wizard doesn't know of his or her magical background. Well, either way, it comes, and they all find out in the end.

Harry Potter was an average sized boy. He was the average height for an eleven-year-old. He was the average weight for an eleven-year-old. Anything the average eleven-year-old had, he did too. He had jet-black hair that never seemed to do what he wanted it to do, no matter how hard he tried. Harry Potter was just…average.

"Hello, Tom," Lily said as she accompanied her son through The Leaky Cauldron, a popular pub, and the entrance to Diagon Alley.

Lily was always telling Harry to be courteous, and that at some point in his life, it would pay off, because others would remember your manners and think better of you.

The Leaky Cauldron never failed to amaze Harry. It could only be seen by magic folk, and Harry quite enjoyed watching the muggles—non-magic folk—just outside looking from the shop on the left to the shop on the right, but never noticing the large pub filled with various magical creatures right in front of their eyes.

"Hello," said the hunchbacked bartender.

In order to get out the back door, Harry and Lily had to slip past an ogre that was busy enjoying some sort of magical ale or another.

Harry was used to this sort of thing, however, seeing as he had made many trips through The Leaky Cauldron to Diagon Alley with his mother or occasionally his father.

Out the back door of the pub, where the dumpster was, there was a brick wall. Lily took out her wand and tapped several of the bricks on the wall. She took a step back. Instinctively, Harry followed suit. Right before their eyes, the bricks moved off to either side of the wall, revealing an archway of a sort.

Harry walked with his mother into the crowded street that was Diagon Alley. Surrounding the wide street were many different shops. There seemed to be a different shop for every magical need imaginable. There were cauldron shops. There were clothing shops. There were potions shops. There were wand shops. There were bookshops. There were food shops. There were also broomstick shops. Harry's favorite was Quality Quidditch Supplies. The store always had the newest broomsticks and supplies.

"We're going to need to go to Gringotts," Lily informed Harry.

Gringotts was the wizarding bank. It was probably the safest place to store your valuables in the whole world, as it was guarded by goblins. The bank is built underground, and only goblins can navigate through the tunnels. Anyone else walking around in the bank would get lost and most likely never be seen again.

Harry and Lily continued down the busy street to the large marble building at the end. They walked up the stairs at the entrance and stepped up to a tall, wooden desk. A goblin peered over the desk and said, in a scratchy voice, "Yes?"

"Hello," said Lily. "I need to make a withdrawal."

The goblin leaned farther over the desk, and asked, "Do you have your key?" in that same, scratchy voice as before.

Lily reached into her leather purse and handed the large, copper key to the goblin.

"Follow me," it said.

Lily followed the goblin and Harry followed Lily to a wooden door just to the right of the desk. The Goblin opened the door and the three walked through it, into the tunnels of Gringotts.

The goblin was nearly Harry's height. It was really very ugly, but Harry knew that it knew what it was doing.

When the goblin indicated a large wooden cart, Lily and Harry took this as their queue and they climbed into it. The goblin sat in the front of it.

Suddenly, the cart began to move along the track, though the goblin wasn't doing anything. Lily didn't much like the cart rides, but she stuck it out. Harry, on the other hand, thought it was fun. It reminded him of flying on his broomstick, which was something he did quite often at home.

The cart stopped shortly after the Potters had gotten in it. Harry jumped out of the cart so his mother could climb out.

The goblin put the key that Lily had given into the door of the vault and instructed the Potters to stand back. They did as they were told, which was lucky, because the door swung open and would have hit them had they not moved.

The open door revealed large piles of gold, silver, and bronze coins. The large gold ones, called galleons, were worth the most, followed by the silver ones, called sickles, and then the bronze ones, called knuts.

Lily pulled a sock out of her purse and dropped several of each coin into it. She handed the sock to Harry, who pocketed it. He knew that would be all he would get for the whole school year.

Reluctantly, Lily got back into the cart.

Back in Diagon Alley, above ground, Harry retrieved the list of supplies that came with the letter from his pocket. He read the list aloud to his mother.

"Can I go look in Quality Quidditch Supplies?" Harry asked after he had purchased all of his schoolbooks and supplies.

"I suppose," Lily replied

Harry rushed to the shop window, where he saw many kids around his age standing there, their faces pressed against the glass. He joined them, and saw what they were all looking at, entranced. It was the new broomstick, the _Nimbus 2000_. It was the fastest broom so far created. Harry had read all about it in a magazine, _The Quidditch Current._ He looked at the price tag on the display case, and he compared it to the sock he had in his pocket. He didn't have enough; he knew that without counting what was in the sock.

With a sigh, Harry turned around and headed back to his mother. His spot at the window was quickly refilled by some other kid.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Do you have your ticket, Harry?" asked James Potter, for what felt like the millionth time.

They were at King's Cross train station in London on September the first, and it was ten fifty-five, according to the large clock on the wall. Harry was getting ready to leave for Hogwarts.

"Yes, Dad," Harry replied, for what seemed like the millionth time.

"Alright then, let's go. Just walk into the barrier between platforms nine and ten. You go first, and your mother and I will come in right after you. We don't want to attract the muggles' attention."

Harry took a deep breath, and pushed his trolley straight into the brick wall. Where a muggle would have collided with the barrier, Harry just went right through it, as if it weren't there. He pushed the trolley off to the side next to an overweight woman with red hair and waited for his parents to come. They did just that seconds later.

James looked at his watch. "Go, or you'll miss the train," he said.

"I'll miss you!" Lily exclaimed. She threw her arms around her son.

"Lily…" said James, tapping her on the shoulder.

"Oh…right…" She took a step away from her son.

"Have a good term," said James.

"Don't forget to write!" called Lily as Harry walked uneasily up the stairs to the train.

As he walked down the train, trying to find an empty compartment, he saw two boys with flaming red hair running to the window. "Hey, Mom, guess what?" said one of them out the window to the red-haired woman Harry had stood next to. "Guess who we just met on the train? Neville Longbottom!"

Harry continued through the train. Oh, he'd heard of Neville Longbottom, all right. Neville was the one who had stopped Lord Voldemort. Maybe not for good, but it had been ten years since Voldemort had been seen, so Neville had definitely put all of Voldemort's plans on hold.

Lord Voldemort was, and there is no better way to explain it, the bad guy. Before he tried to kill Neville Longbottom, he did many terrible things—such as torturing muggles—all for amusement. Then he had gone after Neville's parents, Frank and Alice. The two had died for him. Lord Voldemort then tried to kill Neville, but something about him had stopped the killing curse Voldemort had used, and the curse had bounced back and hit Voldemort instead. Many people were so scared of Voldemort that they wouldn't even say his name. Almost everyone called him "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named".

Harry had reached the end of the train. When he looked into the last compartment, he saw that there was only one person in it—a tall, skinny boy, with red hair. At first he thought it was one of the boys he had seen when he first boarded the train, but they had been taller, older. Also, he reasoned, they would have had to pass him to get down here.

He opened the door anyway, and let himself in. "May I sit here?" he asked the boy.

"Yeah…go ahead," he replied. "I'm Ron Weasley, by the way." He held out his hand.

"Harry Potter," said Harry, shaking Ron's hand. Everything his mother had said to him about being courteous flashed back through his head. He couldn't be getting homesick already; he'd only just left. "You don't have any brothers, do you?" he asked, thinking of the two boys.

"Yeah," Ron replied. "You probably saw them on the train. They're not really that easy to miss."

Harry laughed.

Just at that moment, the compartment door opened, and in walked a girl with very bushy dirty blonde hair and overly large teeth. "Have you seen a toad?" she asked. Neville Longbottom's lost his."

Harry and Ron both shook their heads "no".

"Kind of pathetic," said the girl. "Nobody has seen it and there were several people who volunteered to search the train, but they weren't any help…they seemed a bit overexcited at the task, if you ask me."

Harry hadn't planned on asking this girl anything, but Ron said, "I bet it was Fred and George. Did they have red hair?"

"Yes they did," the girl said, matter-of-factly. "Actually, they looked quite a bit like you," she said, pointing at Ron.

_And remember, it's rude to point,_ came a voice in Harry's head. He'd have to make his mother's words of manners go away; he didn't think he could stand going the whole term hearing his mother every time he did something polite.

"I'm Hermione Granger," she said, holding her hand out to Ron and Harry. As Harry shook her hand, he concentrated as hard as he could on not hearing words of wisdom about manners. He must have screwed up his face in concentration a bit too hard, because the girl that was Hermione Granger said, "Are you feeling alright?"

He relaxed his muscles. "I'm fine," he replied. When he saw that Hermione was raising her eyebrows at him, he said, "Really, I am."

She let her eyebrows sink back down to their normal position. "Well, tell me if you see the toad," she said, and walked out of the compartment, closing the door gently behind her.

Once he was sure she was gone, Ron said, "I hope she's not in my house."

Harry laughed. "What house do you think you'll get?"

At Hogwarts, there were four houses that you could be in: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Each house had separate character traits it was looking for.

"Well," Ron began, "All of my brothers have been in Gryffindor. Fred and George would never let it go if I was in Slytherin. I guess Ravenclaw would be okay, but Hupplepuffs are sort of dim, don't you think?"

"Yeah, my parents were in Gryffindor. I wonder if it runs in families," Harry replied. "That's definitely the house I want, but, yeah, Ravenclaw would be okay."

"You-Know-Who was in Slytherin," said Ron suddenly.

"Yeah. There's never been a wizard that's gone bad that hasn't been in Slytherin. It would be awful to be in Slytherin."

"Neville Longbottom is really on the train right now, isn't he?" Ron asked.

"Yeah. I wonder what it would be like to be him."

Ron nodded. "Having no parents and all," he said.

"Not just that," Harry added, "But just knowing that it was YOU who defeated You-Know-Who."

There was silence.

The door slid open, and, Harry, half expecting it to be Hermione Granger again, quickly said to Ron, "So, do you like Quidditch?"

But the person at the door was not Hermione Granger. Instead, it was a plump woman, pushing a cart covered in magical sweets and foods. Harry recognized Drooble's Best Blowing Gum and Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans immediately. He also saw that there were pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, sugar quills, and many other sweets. "Anything off the trolley, Dears?" asked the woman.

"No thanks," Ron replied, reaching into his pocket and pulling out what looked to be a smashed peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a plastic bag.

"And for you?" asked the witch, nodding at Harry.

"Uh… I think I'll have a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans," he said. He reached into his pocket and removed the sock containing the money he had gotten from his Gringotts vault and handed the witch the appropriate amount of money.

The boys amused themselves for the rest of the journey by talking about Quidditch. Harry learned that Ron's favorite team was the Chudly Canons, which made sense, seeing as their emblem was embroidered on his T-shirt.

It was dark when Harry looked out the window, but he could see the silhouette of a large castle not too far away. He suggested that they put their robes on, and so they did. By the time they had their robes on and were ready to go, the train was already slowing down. When it came to a complete stop, Harry and Ron stood up, picked up their trunks, and walked out of the compartment. They exited the train.

"Firs' years, come this way!" came a loud, booming voice.

Harry and Ron followed the voice to what had to be the biggest man Harry had ever seen. He was nearly two times taller than the average man and nearly three times as wide. He had black hair and a beard that looked as if they had never been combed. The boys stood by the man, with many other kids their age, each looking frightened. Either it was because of standing in the presence of such a large man or the knowledge that soon they would be inside Hogwarts and be sorted. Even Harry didn't know why.

"Firs' years, righ' here!" called the man again.

After a moment or two, he turned to Harry, as he was the closest one to him, and said, "Do ya reckon tha's everyone?"

Harry just nodded; he didn't know what to say.

"Alrigh'y then," said the man. I'm Rubeus Hagrid—tha's Hagrid to you lot—an' I'm the keeper o' keys an' grounds here at Hogwarts."

Some of the kids looked around at each other. Their expressions clearly said, "He's going to be here at Hogwarts?"

"Now then," continued Hagrid, "We're supposed to row across the lake to the castle."

This didn't make anyone happy.

"Four to a boat now, we don' want ter overcrowd them."

Nobody wanted to argue with Rubeus Hagrid.

Harry walked with Ron to the nearest boat and climbed in. They were soon joined by Hermione Granger and a boy Harry had only seen in photographs. It was Neville Longbottom!

No one said anything the whole way across the lake to the castle (the boats were like the cart at Gringotts; they moved by themselves). It could have been because of what awaited them, but just like before, Harry didn't know.

The boats pulled up on shore and Hagrid beckoned for them to follow. They followed him up the path and through the castle's front doors. They were in Hogwarts.


End file.
